All Articles Tagged update

I’ve said it before, but the iPhone and Leopard were supposed to come out together. That’s why we have functionality orphans like Mail and Notes.

Well, Apple has a page up with 300 of the new features coming with Leopard on October 26. There are a few of note, one of which was noticed at jkOnTheRun:

Write handy notes you can access from anywhere — including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC or access them from your iPhone.

There’s a little blurb about To-Dos as well. They’re getting integrated into the mail client. Hmmm… it would make sense why the Calendar application doesn’t have to-do items, if Apple has been planning to put them into their Mail application. This functionality would make Apple’s Mail.app a lot more like Outlook, which I think most people will welcome.

Create to-do items directly from email messages or notes in Mail. Simply highlight text in an email, then click the To Do button to create a to-do from a message.

I don’t think it’s long before we get a Leopard patch for the iPhone. I’d imagine that an iTunes update will accompany it as well, unless the functionality to sync to-dos and Notes is already hidden within the current version of iTunes. There may be other hidden iPhone updates as well; rest assured that I’ll post as soon as I read about them.

There are some reports that some folks are finding that the 1.1.1 firmware update for the iPhone has been pulled from Apple, and that the most recent version of iTunes is now reporting 1.0.2 as the most recent version. And if they haven’t, maybe they should.

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Ambrosia Software, makers of iToner, a software program used to put ringtones on an iPhone, have announced that they are still working on fixing iToner for firmware version 1.1.1. They expect to have an update Real Soon Now:

“it’s our job to make iToner continue to function as a product… and we think we’re going to be able to do just that. Very shortly we will be beta testing iToner 1.0.3 which we believe will bring iPhone OS 1.1.1 compatibility to iToner.”

And wireless positioning firm Navizon, who had a nice cell tower triangulation software bit called, cough, Navizon (discussed here), announced that though they’d give back refunds to users that upgraded to 1.1.1, they’re still alive and kicking and will continue efforts for users that are running firmware 1.0.2.

It is possible to downgrade your iPhone from 1.1.1 to 1.0.2, restoring some functionality of your iPhone. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and last but not least, here. We’ll have a guide up on how to perform this shortly if anyone is still stuck in brickville.

Well, the first major update is out. It brings some cosmetic changes to the iPhone, and fixes a few glaring issues. The ability to purchase tracks on iTunes is great, and I can see iTunes going a long way with this. For example, if Apple could get radio stations to have some sort of standardized ‘now playing’ list in exchange for money or shared revenue or something, perhaps one could buy a song that one heard on the radio and liked. That would be a much more dramatic tie-in than say, Starbucks.

The other major niggle fixed by this update is the ability to set different alert sounds for text messages, and linked alert sounds to the overal ringer volume. In other words, incoming text messages and calendar alerts now have a chance of actually grabbing my attention. Apple added ‘chime’, ‘glass’, ‘horn’, ‘bell’, and ‘electronic’. Needless to say, I’d rather be able to buy a ringtone and assign it; there’s got to be some sound effect CDs in their iTunes Music section, or maybe some gong sound at the beginning of a song or something, but the selection of alert sounds and ability to change their volume is a welcome change. You know, like someone pulling a splinter out of your arm. I’d like to go on record to state that this update is also better than a poke in the eye.

Still, there are things I was hoping for in the update that aren’t here yet. There’s still no To-Do functionality, still no Stereo Bluetooth, still no OBEX Bluetooth. There’s no Notes sync, no SDK or Widgets support (unless Apple’s hiding it for a later surprise). Apple still has a long way to go with their iPhone software, and if this update is an indication, there will be many many months before me and pure bliss.

In all though, I wouldn’t change the scores I gave to the iPhone when I first reviewed it. As a quick recap, I gave it 7/10 if you’re coming from the smartphone world, 9/10 if you’re coming from the featurephone world. The lack of ringtones and alert messages were major flaws, to be sure. But the lack of installable applications, games, To-Do lists, editable office documents (Notes still doesn’t cut it; who can write anything major in Marker Felt?), Stereo Bluetooth, ObEx, USB Mass Storage, eBook reader, cut and paste, Exchange, no multiple recipient SMS, no AIM or other instant messaging, no video record, no wireless sync….

I have two iPhones, one that I’ve been keeping “clean and pristine,” and that’s the iPhone that I use most of the time. I do have another iPhone though, that I have done all manner of hacking and installing apps and the like. If, like me, you have an iPhone that you’d rather keep on version 1.0.2, it’s easy to select older versions of the firmware when you restore the iPhone:

• On a mac, hold down the “option” key while clicking on the “restore” button. Then you can select the firmware file you want, just look for the file named iPhone1,11.0.21C28_Restore.ipsw, it should be in your home folder under Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Update.
• On a Windows PC, hold down the “shift” key while clicking on the “restore” button. Then select the firmware version you want — you should be able to find it if you’ve restored 1.0.2 before by searching for all files and folders and looking for *restore.ipsw

Along with the official changes of yesterday’s update, there are some unofficial changes that aren’t good enough to make a bullet point on Apple’s list. Which is weird, because some of these are huge.

• You can now select different alerts for incoming messages:
  Settings -> Sounds -> New Text Message -> choice of:
  Tri-Tone (default), Chime, Glass, Horn, Bell, Electronic
• International keys are available by holding down the letter key.
• The iPhone mail application supports MP3 and .wav Attachments
• includes the closed captioning abilities promised
• enables a debug console for MobileSafari for web developers to find errors on their pages:
  Settings -> Safari -> Developer -> Debug Console [on/off]
• breaks every 3rd party jailbreak — the iPhoneDevWiki team will have to reverse-engineer the iPhone all over again
• since the iPhone can’t be jailbroken, there is no way to get 3rd party ringtones on the iPhone.

And just for the sake of posterity, after the break there’s a readable version of Apple’s list of official changes.

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figure 1:Apple’s 1.1.1 update is out, and it clocks in at 152.3 MB

Apple released their long-promised 1.1.1 update to the iPhone, and it looks like the update is “all clear” for anyone that has not hacked their iPhone. They also posted another training video to go with the update, starring the same fellow from Apple’s earlier training videos (see here, here, and a creepy but funny mashup here).

I received an email from Wireless Imports in which they advise unlockers wait to apply the update:

We have just received confirmation that it is NOT safe for anyone to update their iPhones software at this time. If you do upgrade the software you will have your phone relocked back to AT&T and there is nothing currently we will be able to do to assist in re-unlocking your phone.

At this time we do not know if you will be able to use your AT&T sim card with the phone even though it is locked back to AT&T.

Again we ask that you DO NOT upgrade to the new software under any circumstance.

We will send you another email when we have more information on this matter.

If you unlocked via AnySIM or the terminal unlock methods, it’s probably also not a good idea to update the iPhone. If you’ve unlocked your iPhone, it is probably best to wait to apply this update.

Unsurprisingly, if you’ve hacked your iPhone, Apple has broken 3rd party applications and re-locks iPhones that were previously unlocked. Applications that were installed on the iPhone remain on the iPhone, although there isn’t a way to launch those applications until hackers jailbreak the iPhone again.

Unfortunately, Apple’s language in the patch update indicates their willingness to dump the warranty on anyone that’s unlocked their iPhone and thereby saw it bricked with this update. If you hack your iPhone in the future, you will want to get used to waiting a few days or more past an update to see how the update could affect you. Let someone else be the hero.

[via]

The iPhone Dev Team, the same folks that have set the stage for 3rd party applications and more recently, the free iPhone unlock methods, released a statement via Erica Sadun of TUAW about Apple’s positioning on the iPhone unlock and the possible bricking of iPhones. Their statement is to wait to install the patch if you’ve unlocked your iPhone; if you really need the update, they have a tool in the works that will restore your iPhone to its factory condition. The ‘restore-to-factory-condition’ tool would be useful for anyone that wanted to sell their iPhone and be assured that there’s no personal information on the iPhone. The text of their statement is reproduced below:

9/25 Statement from the iPhone unlockers

Based on download numbers, the iPhone Dev Team believes that, worldwide, several hundred thousand people have unlocked their iPhones. That number continues growing every day. The removal of the lock, a bug, was a major step forward in the iPhone development. It made the iPhone free and useful to anyone, not only to those in certain countries.

Apple now announces that the next firmware update, expected later this week, will possibly break the handset of all of us free users in the World. It speaks of “damage” done to the firmware and “unauthorized access” to our own property, The removal of those firmware problems, which were built in in favor for AT&T, does not cause “damage” as they want to make us believe.

We will provide you with a tool in the next week which will be able to recover your nck counter and seczones and even enables you to restore your phone to a Factory-like state.

In the meantime we advise you not to update your free iPhone with the upcoming firmware. Wait for the next version to be fixed to work properly with your carrier and not break your phone.

According to an exclusive by macapper.com, picture messaging and AIM could be in the works with the so-close-you-could-stab-it 1.1.1 update. I’ll grant that it could just as easily be a screw-up by AT&T, or maybe he’s got his iPhone on some non-iPhone plan and just temporarily forgot about it. Maybe, though, it’s the real deal. You never know.